


if we all die young then we don't get hurt

by alexanger



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/F, Fair Folk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 18:57:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11363586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/pseuds/alexanger
Summary: “What do I owe you?” asks Maria fearfully.“A life for a life is customary,” says Eliza.Maria’s blood runs cold. “You mean -”





	if we all die young then we don't get hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theGirlNightwing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theGirlNightwing/gifts).



Faerie dealings have a way of going awry. The fae keep their own ways and never let a debt go unpaid.

Sometimes the townsfolk catch glimpses of a young woman in the forest. She’s barefoot and ethereal, clothed in white linen, all long hair and large, haunting eyes. She has a way of laughing wild and then disappearing. She bears a striking resemblance to a young woman who turned up dead perhaps a decade ago.

Perhaps she’s a ghost. Perhaps she’s enchanted.

And Eliza?

Eliza knows, but she won’t tell.

 

* * *

 

“A disappearance,” says Eliza. She tucks her raven hair behind one ear - Maria can’t help but notice the way that ear comes to a graceful point - and toys with one of the curious wooden instruments on the table in front of her. “Those are costly.”

“Whatever it takes,” Maria starts, but Eliza cuts her off.

“You say that but you don’t seem to understand the gravity of your words, nor of your request.”

“I don’t care what I need to do. I need to escape,” says Maria. “My husband -”

She pauses. Swallows. There are no bruises on her face or her arms, nowhere that anyone could see, but there’s an ache and a sting nearly everywhere her dress covers. Not that it would matter if the marks were visible or if she were to tell anyone. She knows her reputation for hysteria and untruthfulness; she knows exactly how much of that is her husband’s doing.

Eliza cocks her head. “He treats you poorly, I take it.”

In response, Maria hikes up her dress and shows off her legs.

The faerie is silent for a long moment, then clicks her tongue against her teeth and says, “a disappearance, then.”

“Just long enough for me to get away,” says Maria. “To start again without him. I -” And here she falters and goes silent. “I would need money,” she continues slowly. “I’ll repay you, of course. But I need to get away.”

“Don’t worry about that. The money will come to you,” Eliza says.

“But -”

“I swear it. We don’t lie, you know,” says Eliza. “Have you ever heard of a Schuyler lying?”

There has never been a time in memory that the village has been without a Schuyler. The faerie court must be quite close, but none of them will tell. The newest generation is three of them, sisters, with the same infectious laugh and the same large, bright eyes. Margarita has a reputation for leniency, Angelica one for sternness, and Eliza -

Maria swallows. She wonders if it might not be better to leave and return when Margarita is present. Eliza has a saccharine sweetness that turns to cold anger when debts are left unpaid. She has a reputation for swift and terrible retribution and Maria knows that this dealing will cost her dearly.

But she’s desperate. There’s nothing else to be done.

And Eliza is right. The Schuylers keep their word, although they don’t always do so in the same way a human might. Maria wonders if faeries are incapable of lying or if they just hold rigidly to their strange moral code.

It’s time to be bold. “Can you do it or not?” asks Maria.

Eliza smiles. It’s a little too broad, her teeth a little too pointed. “Of course,” she says. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” says Maria.

Eliza puts down the instrument she’s been playing with and extends a hand. “One disappearance,” she says. “The money will come free. All you will owe me for is his absence.”

“What do I owe you?” Maria asks.

“Don’t worry,” says Eliza. “When it’s time to pay your debt, I’ll tell you.”

They shake hands. Maria gathers her skirts and leaves.

She tries to tell herself the gnawing in her belly is something else - perhaps the start of an illness, or a reaction to food that disagrees with her. Anything but fear.

Humans, it seems,  _ do  _ lie, even to themselves.

 

* * *

 

There’s a stir in the village when a body is found in the river. It’s bloated and hideous, almost impossible to identify. All anyone can really pick out is the peculiar stitching on his clothing.

“Reynolds,” the tailor says when he’s asked. “His wife turns her stitches that way. I haven’t anything to do with it.”

Maria does her best to be shocked and saddened by the news. In a way, she is surprised - she hadn’t realized  _ disappearance  _ meant death. She supposes she should have seen it coming. What better way to make someone disappear?

Eliza could have done a better job, she thinks bitterly. A body turning up in a river isn’t exactly subtle.

She gets along fine living on what little James has left behind until the day that the butcher asks her, “how did he get into that river, anyhow?”

“I haven’t any idea,” she tells her. “He went off to the fields one morning and didn’t come back.”

“You don’t seem all that upset,” the butcher says.

Maria realizes, too late, the casual air with which she’s spoken. “I save my grief for behind closed doors,” she says stiffly, praying that her tone is convincing. “It would hardly cast a good light on my dear husband’s memory to make a performance of mourning him. I was taught dignity.”

The words ring hollow in her ears. She sees the suspicious look on the butcher’s face. Maria gathers her bundles and takes her leave swiftly.

She starts to hear the rumours around town. She starts to hear the chatter about her lack of outward grief and realizes she shouldn’t have seemed so  _ relieved _ at the news of James’ passing. 

There’s a small service in the outdoor chapel at the edge of the woods, where the gods are said to wander. Maria can feel eyes on her as she kneels at the altar to offer salt and fruit to secure her husband’s safe passage to the afterlife. She remembers spitting into the bag of salt at home, remembers sprinkling a fine dusting of ash onto the apples, remembers cursing James’ memory and hoping bitterly that he’s dragged to hell, and wonders if any of those present know just how deep her hatred runs.

She holds herself tall and proud, determined to appear the perfect widow. Maria fans the incense and whispers to the gods to preserve her husband’s spirit, all the while praying inwardly for his eternal damnation. Surely the gods wouldn’t be so unkind as to preserve a man as terrible as James was. Surely their mercy extends to the poor women who cower against their will under a husband’s heavy hand.

It is a gift from the gods, she decides, that James is dead. The gods led her to Eliza to preserve her.

She  _ must  _ believe that, or she is lost.

 

* * *

 

“I have another favour to ask,” Maria says.

Eliza steeples her fingers and cocks her head. “Was one not enough?” she asks.

“I’m blamed for his death. It’s only a matter of time before they attempt to bring me to justice,” says Maria. “As if he wasn’t enough of a curse. As if I hadn’t been burdened enough.”

“I fail to see how I am responsible for this result,” Eliza says.

“You were the one who chose to - to kill him - I didn’t intend for him to die! Only to have him gone long enough to escape,” Maria cries. “A trip of some sort, perhaps! A hunting party! Something that would have given me time to leave -”

“He would never have let you leave,” Eliza says calmly. “Surely you know that what I did was the only way out.”

Maria falls silent. She stares down at the wooden instruments on Eliza’s table as her eyes fill with tears.

“May I sit?” she asks finally. 

Eliza rises, gestures to the pile of cushions in the corner of the tent, and says, “please do. Allow me to join you.”.

Maria all but collapses onto the cushions, and Eliza settles next to her. The faerie seems to be made of water, all sinuous, fluid movements and graceful flowing clothing. She dresses in all blue. Eliza is like a river of unfathomable depth, and Maria feels dusty and parched.

“I didn’t realize,” she says. That’s when the guilt really sets in. She wonders if her life was worth his, if she could have been stronger -

“He chose this,” says Eliza. “He chose to prey on you. Whatever it took to end it is justified.”

“How do we measure a life against a life?” Maria whispers.

“One life has potential for good,” Eliza tells her, “and the other chose wickedness. There was no redemption. I have no regret for what I did.”

“And what  _ did  _ you do? Was it quick?”

Eliza stares at her levelly. “No,” she says finally.

Maria isn’t prepared for the pain, deep and terrible, that lances through her heart. “Oh,” is all she can think to say.

“Do you want to know what I did?” Eliza asks.

“If - if you would … like to tell me …” Maria trails off. She isn’t sure she wants to hear this.

Eliza gives her a little smile, warm and encouraging. “I don’t do it myself,” she says. “I collected on a debt. That’s all.”

“Then how do you know it wasn’t slow?”

“The first murder is never slow,” says Eliza. “It’s always the hardest the first time. But the debt had to be paid, and I refuse to taint my hands with human blood. The question now is how will you repay your debt?”

“What do I owe you?” asks Maria fearfully.

“A life for a life is customary,” says Eliza.

Maria’s blood runs cold. “You mean -”

“No, dear, I’m not going to kill you. Didn’t I just tell you I don’t taint my hands with human blood? At some point, though, I’ll doubtless have another life that needs taking, and when the time comes I’ll need someone to do the work for me.” That little smile grows wider.

“I can’t,” says Maria.

Eliza raises her eyebrows. “Can’t?”

“How do I measure one life against another?” Maria repeats. “Who am I to judge who deserves to die?”

“You aren’t one to judge. I am,” Eliza tells her.

“Just because you aren’t human -”

“I take the deals that appeal to me,” the faerie says. “No more, no less. Human morality doesn’t factor into it. Your kind are so soft - you feel compassion for him even now, don’t you? It pains you to know his death was drawn out.”

“I loved him,” cries Maria.

Eliza is silent for a long moment. “You loved him,” she repeats, and there’s a curious warmth in her eyes. “Even after all he did, you loved him.”

“He was my husband,” says Maria simply.

“You deserve far better than him,” Eliza tells her.

There’s a heavy silence that falls between them. Maria feels a hand on her shoulder and jumps before leaning into the touch.

“I should have warned you,” says Eliza. “Of course, with your history, you would be averse to touch. I apologize.”

“It’s not touch I’m averse to. I just don’t like to be startled,” Maria says.

“I understand. He did terrible things.”

“Unforgivable,” says Maria.

“Yes,” Eliza agrees.

“But I’ll forgive him anyway, sooner or later.”

“You don’t need to, you know.”

“I know. But I know I will. It’s how it’s always been.”

Eliza smiles. “You have a kind heart, dear. Let me make sure it isn’t your undoing. Come work with me. I’ll teach you some of my craft. You may work off your debt that way, if you can’t bear to take a life.”

“Yes,” says Maria, and her heart jumps into her throat. “Where?”

“Another town. Away from here. Suspicions won’t matter there. I’ll invent some grudge, something to explain James’ murder.”

“How?” Maria asks.

Eliza grins, and her teeth are like jagged points of ice. “You aren’t the only woman looking for an escape,” she says. “And if I can destroy two terrible men in the same way - well, I have no qualms about doing so.”

Maria looks at that cold, merciless grin, and shudders.

 

* * *

 

The instruments she keeps in the tent are charms, Eliza explains. They don’t do much aside from ward her workspace, but they  _ look  _ mysterious and magical to humans, and that’s where most of their power lies.

“This is information we protect more than anything else,” says Eliza as she tends to the ring of mushrooms in the forest clearing closest to the town. She tenderly strokes one cap and coos to it like one might to a beloved pet. “If you were to disclose it, we’d be forced to stop that disclosure by any means necessary. You can understand why, I assume.”

“Yes,” says Maria. She’s wary of touching the mushrooms, but Eliza takes her hand and guides it to stroke along one of the stalks gently.

“Feel for distress,” she says. “Feel for upset or disharmony. If they’re happy you’ll feel it, once you learn to read them. You’ll recognize their hunger, their pain, their desires and needs. What can you feel from them?”

“They’re … pleased?” Maria says warily.

“Yes,” says Eliza.

Maria hums with muted pride.

“We keep them well fed. Mushrooms are very important in faerie craft.”

“What do you use them for?”

Eliza grins, showing the points of her teeth. “These are webcaps. Have you heard of them?”

“No, but they look almost like a chanterelle -”

“You’d be forgiven for thinking that,” says Eliza. “It’s why we grow them. The variety is deadly webcap.”

“Oh,” says Maria. She pulls her hand back and surreptitiously wipes it on her skirt.

Eliza glances at her hand. “I considered these for James,” she says. “Easy enough to plant them in the home. But then you might have been hurt as well. I couldn’t allow that.”

“Oh,” Maria repeats.

“Come. We have an orchard,” says Eliza. She takes Maria by the hand again and guides her deeper into the forest. In every direction there’s a myriad of plants; Eliza points out edible fiddleheads, the abundance of chamomile growing wild, the snarls of blackberry brambles. She plucks a salmonberry and holds it to Maria’s lips. “It’s safe,” she says, when Maria hesitates. “I swear no harm will come to you when you’re with me.”

Maria accepts the berry. The juice bursts sweet-sour across her tongue and she half-closes her eyes to savour it.

“I’ve never had these,” she says. “It’s silly, isn’t it? I devour blackberries by the basket but I’ve never tasted one of these little things. Never really even looked twice at them.”

“They’re ours,” says Eliza simply. Maria feels her face grow warm.

“I didn’t realize -”

“So are you, now,” Eliza tells her. “Ours, I mean. Well, specifically mine. My guest, more than anything. I may as well show you faerie hospitality.”

“Kind,” Maria murmurs. “So where is your orchard?”

Eliza waves about in a sweeping gesture. “Here,” she says, and that’s when Maria realizes she’s standing in a grove of berry brambles and fruiting trees. There’s red clover thick on the ground in the sunny patches between the smaller trees and dandelions grow rampant wherever their roots can possibly take. Mushrooms climb the trunk of an oak standing near the edge of the grove; Eliza crosses to the oak, breaks off a little of a mushroom, stoops to gather a couple of acorns, and returns to put the mushroom to Maria’s lips.

“These are safe,” she says, and Maria accepts the mouthful and savours the nutty flavour. She eyes the acorns in Eliza’s hand.

“Acorns?” she asks.

Eliza cracks a shell between her teeth. “I doubt you’d enjoy them raw. We use them for flour - we don’t use wheat, that’s a  _ human  _ crop. I don’t mind them fresh, though you’d likely spit them out.”

Maria learns the names of the herbs in the forest. She learns to strain marigold through pure spring water to scry, learns to chew mint with her left molars and spit the juices through her front teeth to guarantee safe travel. Eliza teaches her to harvest the mullein that grows in the mushroom clearings to purify her tents - she has several, one in each village within walking distance of the forest. The Schuylers do their dealings in three little villages, not just Maria’s old town. That’s the reason for the rotation, Eliza explains. “It saves us from stagnation. If we had to spend every single day in the same place - well, we’d likely go mad. Our folk needs freedom and space to roam. I can’t understand the human need to  _ settle.” _

Maria drinks in everything she’s taught and soon her brain is full of herbs and fungi and plants and flowers. Myrtle, basil, juniper and jasmine for love, bay laurel, wormwood hawthorn and hyssop for protection, walnut to strengthen the heart. Eliza weaves her a crown of willow and Maria learns to walk lightly, barefoot, in the forest, so as not to crush the tender grasses underfoot. She learns to sever stalks with her fingernails, only resorting to the short knife she keeps in her cord belt when she absolutely has to. It hurts the plants less to be amputated by hand, Eliza had explained, but a clean cut is better than a tear. Warm hands are far kinder than cold metal but the chill of a blade is sometimes necessary.

At night, they share Eliza’s home, a single room with a broad hearth and a soft nest of straw and linen. “No furs?” Maria had asked the first time she’d slept there.

Eliza had looked at her as though she’d grown a second head. “That’s macabre. We get along fine without keeping the skins of dead things to sleep on.”

Maria often lays awake at night. She muses on James, on what his final moments must have been like, and wonders if she can really measure the worth of his life in any way that justifies his death. She wonders if his final moments were fearful, or if he was resigned. She wonders if he knew why he was dying.

Some nights, she hopes he suffered.

Some nights, she hates herself.

 

* * *

 

There are nightmares, visions of James’ bloated body and his horrible lipless mouth, until she wakes Eliza with her sobs one night. The moment the sun is up Eliza steals away and returns with anise seed and leaves. The leaves she scatters about the bedroom. The seeds she brews into a strong infusion, with which she anoints Maria’s pillow. There’s a strong smell and at first Maria can’t bear the scent, but slowly she learns to love it for the way it guards her sleep.

Eliza sleeps with bay leaves tucked into the fabric of her pillow. There are ash branches hanging over their shared bed and dried jasmine flowers hanging in sachets from the branches. “For prophecy,” says Eliza, “although it isn’t always terribly helpful. That being said, I do tend to solve most of my problems by napping.”

Eliza adds a spray of dried juniper berries to the ash branches. There’s a use for those that Maria can’t quite recall, but she doesn’t ask.

Maria notices with a start one morning that she’s cuddled up under Eliza’s arm. Eliza smells warm. There’s the faint scent of cedar smoke clinging to her nightdress but underneath that is another smoky smell that must be just  _ her,  _ the way her skin and breath and heart smell. Maria wonders exactly when she started to notice these things and exactly when she began to snuggle up to Eliza at night.

Eliza is awake. Maria notices with a start that her eyes are open.

“Good morning,” she whispers.

Maria pulls away, not hurriedly, but methodically. She’s afraid of being ensnared. She remembers James, the way his voice was soft and husky like that, the way he’d put his fingers beneath her chin and tilt her face up so he could kiss her. It’s terrifying to feel that closeness again. And no, Eliza has never hurt her - but Maria can’t help but remember that she’s sharing a bed with the woman who is responsible for her husband’s death.

What is it like to weigh and measure a life and decide to end it?

Maria rolls onto her side, showing Eliza her back, but when Eliza curls around her, she doesn’t move away.

 

* * *

 

The orchard is fruiting. There are pears and apples growing and Eliza and Maria spend hours laying in the clover, nibbling at dandelion leaves, Eliza cracking acorns between her teeth. The birds never seem to stop singing and it’s not unusual for a deer to wander through now and again. “We aren’t a threat to them,” Eliza explains to a shocked Maria the first time it happens. “We’ve never harmed them. Of course, we can’t do anything about your human scent, but you’ve got enough faerie on you now that she must know you won’t hurt her.”

“She’s so gentle,” Maria murmurs. The deer picks its way through the clover, stopping here and there to nibble. 

“She has no reason to be anything else,” Eliza says.

“What’s that like?” asks Maria.

Eliza turns her head; Maria can see the motion out of the corner of her eye but she refuses to meet her gaze. “What’s what like?” Eliza asks.

“Softness,” says Maria. “With no reason to be anything else.”

Eliza rolls over and puts one arm across Maria’s middle. “Let me show you,” she murmurs.

Maria looks up into beautiful brown eyes. She lifts a hand to cup Eliza’s cheek - her high cheekbones, her gorgeous full lips that she traces with her thumb - and says, “alright.”

The kiss is softer, gentler, than Maria could have imagined. With James, there’d always been an element of domination, a constant reminder he was stronger and more in control; but with Eliza, kissing is the sweet yield of the flesh of a berry, unobtrusive and sun-warm. It’s not heady, not intoxicating, but it  _ could  _ be. 

Eliza pulls back. “You’re gentler than you know,” she says.

Maria muses on the way she pares the leaves of herbs from the plants, the way she tends to the webcaps in the mushroom clearings, the way she pulls herself into the fruiting trees to pluck sun sweetened fruit from the highest branches. She realizes with a start that it’s been a year since James died. His lipless mouth still haunts her but there’s less room in her mind for it; she’ll full to the brim with sunlight, with the scent of herbs, of incense, of sunlight on leaves and the skin of fruits. “You taught me this,” she says. “How to be gentle.”

“It’s time to teach you to be still,” says Eliza, and she smiles.

And she kisses Maria, kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, until her breath is gone and her lips taste like blackberries.

 

* * *

 

The skittish young woman glances at Maria and asks, “who’s this?”

“My assistant,” Eliza tells her. “What do you need?”

“A way out. An escape. My husband -”

Maria feels her breath hitch in her chest. She does her best to keep her breathing even and regular but there’s a crushing pressure on her lungs that can’t be ignored.

The young woman displays bruises and then the tent is far too small and the world is collapsing in and all Maria can see is Eliza’s skirts. Eliza’s voice breaks into her thoughts, saying, “Willow. Willow. Willow.” Insistent, staccato, firm. What does willow mean? Inspiration. Emotion. Love.

“Willow,” she echoes.

“Willow, can you go outside and fetch some rosemary and lavender for me?” asks Eliza, and suddenly Maria remembers her new identity, her new name, and she stumbles to her feet and exits the tent through the side flap near Eliza’s stool. There’s no herbs outside the tent but she has a small bag around her waist with some of the essentials, so she sits in a puddle of sunlight and checks for rosemary and lavender. The scent of the lavender calms her. Protection, she thinks. Relaxation. She imagines Eliza’s lips, Eliza’s arms, Eliza’s beautiful brown eyes. The way they wrap around each other at night and fall asleep entangled. The shared mornings in the orchard. It takes a thousand years before her breathing slows and there’s space to feel the hollow ache in her chest. In moments like these her thoughts always come back to James, and it’s equal parts loathing and regret. She wonders in these moments if she could ever learn to let go of either.

It takes an eternity but eventually Eliza comes out and crouches next to her. There’s that scent of cedar smoke and sunlight, the one Maria adores. “Are you alright?” asks Eliza.

“I’m fine. I don’t know what came over me,” says Maria.

“Terrible things leave lasting marks. Like scars,” says Eliza. “But internal. I can help you with that.”

Maria takes Eliza’s hand. Time is still moving too slowly. “You gave me a name that means love,” she says.

“Yes,” says Eliza.

“Why did you give me a name that means love?”

Eliza smiles. “Isn’t it obvious? Come inside. My client is gone. I’ll get you some tea and we can go home early today.”

“I want to see the mushrooms,” Maria says. “No tea. Just … the clearings. Why did you send me out for herbs?”

“What do the herbs do, Maria?”

“Oh.” She pauses, clutches the little pouch of lavender in her hand. Protection. Relaxation. She wonders if she should be ashamed of how long it’s taken her to understand.

“Yes. Shall we clean up?” Eliza kisses the top of Maria’s head. It’s a gentle gesture, curiously disarming.

Maria follows Eliza into the tent. Together they gather Eliza’s things - her wooden charms, carved from willow and oak and cedar and hawthorn and juniper, her satchel of herbs, her kettle, her scrying bowl, the stones she casts to tell the future. They aren’t usually in any kind of hurry but today Maria feels time pressing in on her. She wants to  _ leave.  _ That young woman reminds her of who she was a lifetime ago. There’s something so visceral, so real, in the way the young woman had cringed and cowered. Maria remembers being that girl.

At last, she realizes exactly why James had to die.

The mushroom clearings are constant. The webcaps sprout in circles for the fair folk and they remain in rings, an endless circle of tenacious life. They don’t need to be anything more or less than what they are. Maria wonders what it is to be so assured in the self. She lives with a foot in two worlds, and it’s exhausting, so exhausting, to wonder which world she really belongs to.

Eliza slings her satchel over her shoulder and allows Maria to lead the way. By now, Maria can follow her feet and let her mind wander. She can’t help wondering if she really belongs - surely she must be a drain on Eliza’s time and energy by now. Nothing she’s done has really been  _ work _ and she refuses to pay her debt properly, so -

She stumbles into the clearing and kneels beside the mushrooms and touches one cap, and when she turns, Eliza is on her knees as well, holding a crown of willow branches and jasmine and myrtle flowers.

“Maria,” she says.

“Yes,” Maria breathes.

“My folk have a custom - it’s similar to what humans might consider marriage - and I know it likely isn’t what you’d envisioned, but -”

“Oh -”

Eliza laughs and shows the points of her teeth. “If you - Maria, you’re so lovely. Dearest Maria. I’ll help you, if you let me.”

“Help me with what?” Maria asks.

“Everything. The world. I know you still struggle so much - and I want only to be with you, dear, when things are hard. I’ve come to love your company more than words can express.”

“My company?”

“You,” says Eliza. “I’ve come to love you.”

Maria realizes with a start that she’s crying. She reaches out and Eliza puts the crown on her head and kisses her soundly.

“Of course, this means I’ll take on your debts,” murmurs Eliza against her lips. “Which means … well … I did say a life for a life, didn’t I? And if you were to marry me, to spend your life with me -”

Maria hums and buries her face against the side of Eliza’s neck. “Yes,” she says. “Yes.”

“We’ll go to the faerie court. I’ll take you with me and we can stay away from humans, at least for a while -”

“Why would we need to stay away?” Maria asks.

Eliza makes a face. “They’ve been asking about you. In your old village. The rumours have come back, and I’ve been managing them up until now but I don’t think I can do so much longer.”

Just like that the delight of the proposal fades and Maria goes cold. “Asking about me,” she says. Her voice is flat and toneless.

“So we create another disappearance,” says Eliza.

“A death,” Maria says, still toneless.

“Have you met my sister Margarita?” Eliza grins ear to ear and the points of her teeth glint in the sunlight. “You could be her mirror image. If we were to cast a glamour and leave her somewhere to be found - perhaps the river -”

Maria goes still. “I’d be free to do - anything. To go anywhere.”

“Then we’d make the ‘body’ disappear, she’d come home, and no one would believe a thing if you were spotted,” says Eliza.

Maria kisses her a thousand times and says, “yes. Take me away. I’ll go anywhere as long as it’s with you.”

 

* * *

 

Faerie dealings have a way of going awry. There was a young woman, a time ago, who went into one of their tents and came out changed. Some say she went mad and killed her husband, and then herself, in a fit of rage; others say she sought a deal out of desperation and found herself caught up in something terrible, something that destroyed her life and left her dead.

And Eliza?

Eliza might say that dealing with faeries was the best choice her pretty wife ever made.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos weave me a fancy willow crown and propose to by a faerie ring. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


End file.
